A photograph (left) and an infra-red reflectography of a tattoo found on the mummified remains of a Sudanese woman. | Photo courtesy of the British Museum.

The British Museum has used CAT scans to examine eight Egyptian-era mummies, one of whom was a woman who died about AD 700. But researchers were able to discover with their eyes alone what the 20-to-35-year-old carried to protect her in life and death: a Christian tattoo. Continue reading →

Esri has made an interactive map that lets you explore all the tornados that have struck the country from 1980 to 2012. Even Western Pa.’s small storms are plotted.

The Enhanced Fujita Scale uses wind speeds and damage indicators to calculate the severity of the storm. Since 1980, the country has suffered through 21 Category 5 tornadoes. Despite how much better forecasters have become at pinpointing paths of storms with the help of technology, the single deadliest tornado since modern-record keeping began in 1950 occurred only a few years ago. On May 22, 2011, 158 people were killed in Joplin, Missouri.

He has spent his life as a maintenance worker at a zoo in the Netherlands. Now, the 54-year-old — identified only by his first name, Mario — doesn’t have much time left. He’s incapacitated by terminal cancer, and his last wish was to see the animals at Rotterdam’s Diergaarde Blijdorp zoo for a final time.

When Mario’s hospital bed was wheeled into the zoo enclosure, a giraffe recognized his friend and nuzzled him.

‘(It was) a very special moment,” says Kees Veldboer, founder of the Ambulance Wish Foundation, which granted Mario’s wish and posted a photo on its Facebook page. “You could see him totally light up … it’s very special to see that those animals recognise him, and sense that he isn’t doing well.”

In order to make the list you couldn’t be dead or retired. The other criteria? “In an era that feels starved for leadership, we’ve found men and women who will inspire you — some famous, others little known, all of them energizing their followers and making the world better,” the magazine says.

Round up the usual suspects? Well, OK, taxpayers in New York and California (the first and second in the most onerous tax list) do get hammered, according to an analysis by WalletHub. But who knew that Nebraskans (No. 3) have the tax man breathing down their necks?